Airline Passenger Forced to Sit Next to a Corpse, Has Trouble Getting a Refund – Is It Fair?

The next time someone dies sitting next to you on a commercial flight, you might receive a partial refund. Key word, “might.”

According to a report in a Swedish newspaper, a woman was forced to sit next to a dead man aboard a Kenya Airways flight after the he allegedly died shortly after take off.

The woman says she could tell the man was not feeling well when they boarded the flight in Amsterdam. “He was sweating and was having convulsions… but the plane took off anyway.”

They were already in the air by the time flight staff requested medical attention, including a cardiac massage. Unfortunately, the man passed a few hours later, leaving the woman stranded in the seat next to his corpse for the duration of the overnight flight as there were no other available seats.

“Of course it was unpleasant, but I am not a person who makes a fuss,” she said.

But she did end up making a fuss. Feeling as if she deserved some sort of compensation from the airline, the woman requested a refund for her airfare. Eventually, she got something, but it was only after several months of back-and-forth messaging. If you think that’s bad, she only received a $713 refund, which was about half the cost of her airfare.